This was written by a Yankees fan. It was 2006, a season after the Phillies had finished one game out of the Wild Card race and fired Ed Wade, and fans of other teams were starting to notice positive things about the Phillies, which was a nice thing in the grouchy thicket one waded into to yell about sports on the internet in the mid-00s. More specifically, it was June 20th, and the Phillies were at home against Yankees. Ryan Howard had repeatedly given the Phillies the lead (he had 2 home runs already), and Phillies pitching had repeatedly handed it back to the Yankees. What prompted the above quote was Ryan Howard snatching the lead back for a third time in the 7th, with a line drive triple to right that scored Pat Burrell and Chase Utley, his 6th and 7th runs driven in on the day.

Granted, a combination of Arthur Rhodes and Ryan Franklin promptly handed the lead back to the Yankees in the eighth, and the Phillies went on to lose. And sure, Howard had already shown what he was capable of in a brief 2004 stint and a half-season worth of plate appearances in 2005. But this felt like a true breakout, against one of the best teams in baseball. Many had thought the Phillies had dawdled too long with Jim Thome, and that Howard should’ve been an everyday player sooner. There were a lot of pent-up expectations and day-dreaming, and plenty of regional frustrations years in the making piled upon Ryan Howard, and that was fine, because he was more than delivering.

Howard won the MVP that year, in his first full season, though he arguably was not the most valuable player on his own team, and almost definitely not in his league. And so began years of Ryan Howard being evaluated on attributes that were totally external to Ryan Howard, baseball player — the traditionalist vs. analytical bickering, an albatross of a contract, a maddeningly underrated teammate, and the ungraceful aging of a large portion of his team’s roster, which his general manager failed to plan for. Sooner or later, of course, his case was bad enough on its own. His offensive production fell off steeply, and his defense mostly did not improve. The contract was every bit as ill advised as even the bleakest of doomsayers had warned. His health declined, sometimes subtly, sometimes catastrophically. You know the story.

I always think I’ve been fair to Ryan Howard, even as critical as I tend to have been about him. I think it’s completely fair of me to give Ryan Howard a failing grade for his 2014, which was, by every measure, very bad. The 2014 Phillies never really got off the ground, so it hardly matters, but there was plenty of wondering in the preseason if value could still be salvaged from Howard. For some, he was only ever one clean bill of health away from a late career rebound, and maybe 2014 could be it. Instead, Howard hit .223/.310/.380, struck out in 29% of his plate appearances, and hardly seemed able to run the bases comfortably. His usually reliable performance against right-handed pitching totally collapsed, to the tune of a .292 wOBA (.371 in 2013, .327 in 2012, the worst overall season of his career), which totally undercut an unexpected improvement in performance against southpaws (a .339 wOBA, his highest since 2010). The only positive thing that can be said about his 2014 is that it probably wasn’t as bad as his 2012. All of this, I think, is fair and objective.

Fair as it may be, it still doesn’t feel quite right, because so much of the discourse surrounding Ryan Howard has been unfair. Arguments about Ryan Howard are more often than not arguments about how we talk about Ryan Howard, or arguments about how other people talk about him. Fundamentally, Ryan Howard is a hard-working, bat-only first baseman who had a fantastic 3 or 4 year peak, whose value was always capped by his position, and who predictably was unable to overcome a declining body and some brutal injury issues. Everything beyond that — the contract, the frustrating (post-championship) early playoff exits, the stumbling front office, the balky traditionalist arguments — has nothing to do with him, but he still bore an undue extra share of hand wringing as a result of it.

Howard’s mere existence may causeCody Asche and Maikel Franco to be platooned at third base next season. That’s totally absurd, but is also no fault of Howard’s. If the Phillies fail to trade him this offseason, and fail to realize that (much as I hate to say it) they really should just release him, he will likely bear some of that resulting animosity as well. What I wrote in Howard’s 2013 report card, posted one year ago today, remains true: It’s awful to see inevitability steamroll a player who fought it as hard as he could, and worse yet to see the surrounding discourse so stubbornly off-base. It’s not going to change my grade; I guess it’s just my way of saying “with a heavy heart,”

Grade: F

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/11/11/2014-phillies-report-card-ryan-howard/feed/262014 Phillies Report Card: A.J. Burnetthttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/11/05/2014-phillies-report-card-a-j-burnett/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/11/05/2014-phillies-report-card-a-j-burnett/#commentsWed, 05 Nov 2014 11:00:05 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=16934Continue reading...]]>A.J. Burnett will not be a Phillie in 2015. We learned this yesterday, when he declined his $12.75 million player option for the coming season. Previously it seemed almost certain he would either collect his 2015 paycheck in Philadelphia or retire, but Jayson Stark reported yesterday that Burnett will instead forego his guaranteed keep so that he can seek to pitch for a “contender.” Fair. Ouch, but fair.

On paper, and by any objective analysis, he’s done the Phillies a favor, especially if, as Bill suggested yesterday, the added payroll wiggle room allows the team to more seriously contend for Yasmany Thomas or Yoan Moncada.

Burnett was a fairly sound proposition on a relatively expensive but short deal, in a market where starter innings were growing more costly by the season, and for a team whose rotation depth was (is) becoming a wound they couldn’t (cannot) mend. By the end of his Yankees stint, Burnett was struggling to keep the ball both inside the strike zone and inside the park. In Pittsburgh, he found some stability, inducing grounders at career high rates and putting away 202 and 191 innings in 2012 and 2013 respectively for the Pirates.

He wasn’t elite, of course; we’re talking about around 400 above average innings coming directly on the heels of 800 or so where he was decidedly below average. But it was enough to imagine he’d maybe discovered some late-career pixie dust, and, in any case, the current Phillies front office doesn’t seem to believe in flukes. If Burnett could have piled up the innings at roughly third-starter caliber in 2014, it would’ve filled a crucial need for a modest overpay: a good deal.

But not even the good decisions paid out for the 2014 Phillies. Granted, Burnett spent most of the season battling a troublesome hernia injury with cortisone and foolhardiness, so it’s not clear if we’re looking at a simple regression to (and a stumble below) the mean. Burnett, though, looked somewhat more like the A.J. of 2008 to 2011 than the A.J. with the pirate on his hat.

A.J. Burnett

TBF

K%

BB%

GB%

HR/FB

ERA

ERA-

2008-2011

3519

21.1%

9.8%

46.4%

12.1%

4.59

106

2012-2013

1652

23.6%

7.8%

56.7%

11.0%

3.41

92

2014

935

20.3%

10.3%

50.9%

11.3%

4.59

126

If you’ll forgive some arbitrary chunking of data on my part, and put aside some probably-insignificant wiggling of some of these indicators, Burnett either slid or was dragged by his hernia most of the way back down from his Pirates peak. Walk rate, strikeout rate, and especially ground ball rate all went in the wrong direction, although his 2014 ERA may not have been entirely fair to his inputs. Either way, it was not what the Phillies were hoping to get out of the deal.

Lesser contributors in the rotation can afford to be even worse than we usually imagine (this is a good example of quantifying that notion), and even if teams are taking A.J.’s 2014 at its face, he has a good argument for a 5th starter gig. The Phillies are looking at Cole Hamels, a Cliff Lee of questionable health, Jerome Williams, and a whole lot of question marks in the 2015 rotation. Even so, they’ll be happy not to be paying A.J. Burnett $12 million to anchor the back end.

Grade: D

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/11/05/2014-phillies-report-card-a-j-burnett/feed/82014 Phillies Report Card: Cesar Hernandezhttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/29/2014-phillies-report-card-cesar-hernandez/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/29/2014-phillies-report-card-cesar-hernandez/#commentsWed, 29 Oct 2014 11:00:45 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=16833Continue reading...]]>One of my favorite ever Phillies blog posts is the Generic Game Recap Template posted at The Good Phight by Peter Lyons in 2011. It’s a spot-on script of familiar, frustrating tropes from Phillies losses that season and many others, back when losses were more of an occasional annoyance than an inescapable reality. A particularly funny bit:

the Phillies’ soon found the rally quashed after a double play grounder from [MISCAST AND OVERMATCHED UTILITY INFIELDER OR 4TH/5TH OUTFIELDER]

The Phillies have had plenty of these in recent years. “Hey, it looks like he could probably play [position] so let’s try it, because [injury problems/Rubeness].” This was 2013 for Cesar Hernandez. With Ben Revere healing a broken foot, Hernandez was auditioned in center field in the minors, then brought up to play there for the big club, as the Phillies limped to the finish line in September. It didn’t really seem to work for him. While his speed is unquestionably an asset, Hernandez didn’t demonstrate the ability to take good routes to balls in play, or the type of first step instincts you would hope for.

The Phillies seemed to have taken that to heart for 2014, using him more often off the bench, and limiting him mostly to second base. Still, it’s hard to figure out where Cesar Hernandez fits on the Phillies, and, maybe, on any major league roster. He can’t really be considered a utility player, as he simply doesn’t have the chops to play shortstop, and probably not center. Even in the most generous assessment, his bat doesn’t seem to play anywhere but the most valuable positions, and it’s questionable whether, in 2014, it’s worth holding a roster spot for a strictly backup second baseman. The only place to dream on Cesar Hernandez, then, is playing second base every day, and Chase Utley, at least for the moment, is a Phillie in 2015 and possibly 2016.

Even if Utley is moved off the position or traded, so far Hernandez’s bat doesn’t seem to rate as everyday-caliber. Granted, he’s only logged 256 big league plate appearances, and we can give him some credit for adjusting to a different position in 2013, but he’s frankly looked overmatched. Even in the middle infield it’s difficult to justify rolling out his 76 wRC+ every day, especially on a team like the Phillies, who don’t necessarily have a lot of offense coming from elsewhere in the lineup.

Nobody really expected significant pop from Hernandez, granted, but the biggest component of his minor league success, putting the bat on the ball, hasn’t paid off with the big club yet. Hernandez has put the ball in play at about a league average rate, and getting down the line as well as he does, managed a .321 BABIP. But he struck out in 26% of his plate appearances. When contact is all of what you hang your hat on, it has to be better than that.

Of course, we’re only talking about a half-season worth of plate appearances over 2 years from a 24 year old. It’s not out of the question that he could put it together, and he certainly can seem comfortable at second base, even if the tiny sample metrics don’t agree. But if Chase Utley remains the starting second baseman, the Phillies will have to decide if Hernandez is the best choice for a bench spot. On the other hand, he is out of options, and 2015 does not figure to be a contention year in Philadelphia, so inertia may see Cesar Hernandez getting another shot.

Grade: D+

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/29/2014-phillies-report-card-cesar-hernandez/feed/52014 Phillies Report Card: Miguel Alfredo Gonzalezhttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/18/2014-phillies-report-card-miguel-alfredo-gonzalez/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/18/2014-phillies-report-card-miguel-alfredo-gonzalez/#commentsSat, 18 Oct 2014 11:00:41 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=16643Continue reading...]]>Miguel Gonzalez signed with the Phillies in 2013, on the day that the Phillies recorded their 73rd loss of the season — and it was only August 30th. There was no shortage of divergent opinions about where the Phillies had gone wrong, but pretty much everyone agreed that they weren’t headed anywhere good. So Gonzalez joining the team on a 3 year, $12 million deal (revised downward significantly due to health concerns that would prove to be prophetic) was refreshing for a team that doesn’t typically make a splash in the international market.

Even four months before Roy Halladay announced his retirement, it wasn’t difficult to envision a starting rotation in flux, with Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee, themselves soon to be constant subjects of tedious trade speculation, the only veteran assets under long term control. Gonzalez’s signing, in a way, was a precursor to an offseason that, judged by the sub-basement standards Ruben Amaro Jr. had previously established, was pretty decent.

Maybe he wasn’t the elite prospect waiting in the wings; opinions diverged, as they typically do, about a Cuban defector whose previous opportunities for scouting were fewer and further between. Projections from mid-rotation starter to middle reliever were offered up. But as the putative first rung on the ladder back to contention, Gonzalez’s debut was eagerly anticipated. In more than a few analytical haunts, he was penciled in to the 2014 rotation.

Just as he was first in a cycle of reasonably acceptable offseason moves, Gonzalez was first on the list of 2014 disappointments, through no fault of his own. After struggling in a brief spring stint, his hopes for a major league rotation slot had evaporated, and shoulder problems led to a rehab stint which lasted only three appearances before “dead arm” concerns prompted a move to the bullpen. To his credit, Gonzalez stabilized in the minors, enough to get his cup of coffee in September.

The results were not great, but also were not nearly a proper basis on which to draw any conclusions — Miguel only threw 5 and 1/3rd innings, all in relief. He flashed a fastball that can sit 95 to 96 miles per hour, a proper foundation for success, and secondary offerings, an aspirational curve for one, that are promising but in need of more big league testing and refinement.

The Phillies retain every hope of making a starter out of Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, so this coming Spring will be something of a reboot of the previous, a mix of curiosity and rotation wish-casting. It would be nice to know, right now before the offseason begins in earnest, where Gonzalez fits in to the 2015 Phillies, but player health rarely cooperates with the organizational blueprints. The Phillies have two years and a vesting third year option remaining to recover the value of the contract.

Grade: Incomplete

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/18/2014-phillies-report-card-miguel-alfredo-gonzalez/feed/22014 Phillies Report Card: Jayson Nixhttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/13/2014-phillies-report-card-jayson-nix/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/13/2014-phillies-report-card-jayson-nix/#commentsMon, 13 Oct 2014 11:00:41 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=16558Continue reading...]]>Jayson Nix came to the plate 43 times for the Phillies in 2014, mostly in April and early May, before refusing a hard-earned assignment to AAA Lehigh Valley. After a tireless and penetrating analysis of these 43 plate appearances, on behalf of Crashburn Alley and the larger Phillies blogging community, I am prepared to defend the following conclusion: Jayson Nix was very bad.

Let’s really dig into this here. Jayson Nix, during his time with the Phillies, compiled a .154/.214/.231 slash line, for a wOBA of .207. That’s extremely bad! He also struck out in 18 of those 43 plate appearances. That’s also extremely bad! If you look at hitters in 2014 with a minimum of 40 PAs, 75 out of 625 hitters were worse than him, and that’s Justin Maxwell and probably 74 pitchers. Not definitely 74 pitchers, I mean, just looking at it, Daric Barton is down there too. So maybe 73 pitchers. I’m not going to count, because Jayson Nix isn’t worth it. He’s very bad.

You know how Zack Greinke and Gio Gonzalez made appearances for their respective teams in the playoffs this season? The gods of baseball chose to allow the Giants and Cardinals, those cesspools of rot and evil, to advance, because it was preferable to two pitchers who allowed hits to Jayson Nix (a home run in Greinke’s case!) playing in the NLCS. They, along with Martin Perez, Shawn Tolleson, Matt Garza, J.A. Happ, and Tyler Chatwood should retire in shame for allowing Nix to reach base during his Phillies tenure.

Probing the earth-shattering badness of Jayson Nix’s 43 Phillies plate appearances is beyond the scope of today’s advanced statistical analysis tool kit. Fortunately I found a more appropriate resource: A Comparative Study of Methods of Examining Feces for Evidences of Parasitism by Maurice Crowther (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1912). Crowther offers several useful methodologies for deriving meaning from a big pile of shit:

A quantity of feces is diluted with water, 1 in 10, and strained through gauze to get rid of coarse particles. What comes through is centrifuged, the fluid poured off, the centrifuge tube refilled and .the fresh material and the old sediment centrifuged again, thereby constantly adding to the total sediment, until all the diluted feces have been used. The sediment is rewashed several times until all matter that can be washed out in this manner is removed. Then a calcium chlorid solution of a specific gravity of 1.050 is substituted for the water. This disposes of everything having a specific gravity below 1.050, and the sediment may be examined at this point. If much sediment remains, the heavier matter may be removed by cen- trifuging with a calcium chlorid solution having a specific gravity of 1.250. In this solution the eggs come to the top and a few drops from the surface may be removed and examined, or, better, some of the top fluid may be poured off, diluted with water sufficiently to bring the specific gravity below 1.050, and centrifuged. The sediment will now contain most of the eggs that were in the original amount of feces and may all be put on a slide and examined.

I don’t know what the hell most of this means, but I printed out Jayson Nix’s Baseball Reference page and put it in a blender with some of my dog’s poop and will soon be submitting the result for peer review — that he’s very, very bad. If there is any minor consolation for the Phillies it’s that he was even worse for the Pirates, who picked him up on August 3rd and allowed him to compile a .111/.158/.111 line in 39 plate appearances before realizing what a horrible mistake they had made. Let’s all agree to just forget this whole thing happened and pretend that Laynce was the last Nix to ever make a Phillies roster.

Grade:F. No, wait, F-. Screw it, J.

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/13/2014-phillies-report-card-jayson-nix/feed/72014 Phillies Report Card: Mario Hollandshttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/05/2014-phillies-report-card-mario-hollands/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/05/2014-phillies-report-card-mario-hollands/#commentsSun, 05 Oct 2014 12:00:18 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=16479Continue reading...]]>Mario Hollands‘ name was something of a surprise on the Opening Day 25 man roster. The 25 year old had pitched well in the spring, during which Ryne Sandberg appeared to take quite a shining to him; only 3 other pitchers made more spring training appearances than Hollands, a non-roster invitee who spent all of 2013 in either Clearwater or Reading.

The notion of spring-training-as-tryout should probably draw more ire than it does from those of us that wring our hands constantly about sample size. Maybe Sandberg saw some potential in Hollands’ 94 to 95 mph fastball generating ground ball outs, or a slider which, at its peak, can be impressive. Or maybe he was just pleased that Hollands allowed only 4 runs in 11 and 2/3rds innings. Either way, he certainly does not wring his hands about sample size, and not only did Hollands make the Opening Day roster, Sandberg tossed him into the furnace on opening day in Arlington, into a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the 9th against the Rangers.

Ultimately, it was B.J. Rosenberg who, to the surprise of nobody, allowed the walk-off hit by Adrian Beltre. But it was Hollands who set the stage by walking Shin-Soo Choo and Adrian Beltre, generally looking as if it were the first time he was ever asked to throw a ball reasonably close to the same two-and-a-half square foot area.

Hollands’ 2014 campaign improved from there, though that was not his low point — this distinction likely goes to a 3 appearance stretch in July in which he faced 19 batters and only retired 7, allowing 6 runs. He had periods of success, particularly in May and June, when the slider was missing bats and he held the opposition to a .214/.286/.314 line. All along the way, though, he was dogged by walks, which he issued to 10.3% of the hitters he faced.

Hollands hit the 60 day disabled list on September 4th, a day after leaving an outing against the Braves with a sore left elbow. The injury, a grade 2 flexor strain, will not require surgery, so there’s a good chance we will see Mario again in the spring. And that’s fine. Free passes aside, Hollands demonstrated the ability to generate swings and misses, and had the Goddess of Outcomes been a bit fairer to him, he may have been within spitting distance of league average effectiveness.

It’s not impossible to imagine Hollands as a reliable medium leverage reliever — sorry, Ryne, I meant “7th inning guy” — if he can improve his control and be able to attack hitters with his slider more frequently in pitcher’s counts. He could well be a worthy supplement to a bullpen that increasingly looks like it will be built around Ken Giles. There’s no harm in giving him another season to see.

Grade: C-

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/10/05/2014-phillies-report-card-mario-hollands/feed/0Cole Hamels Is Basically Dead, Probablyhttp://crashburnalley.com/2014/02/12/cole-hamels-is-basically-dead-probably/
http://crashburnalley.com/2014/02/12/cole-hamels-is-basically-dead-probably/#commentsWed, 12 Feb 2014 17:23:28 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=13928Continue reading...]]>Pitchers and catchers day! It’s the first sign in an otherwise desolate winter that sentient life exists, and occasionally throws a baseball. Players have lost some amount of weight and it might matter (it won’t)! Beat writers are tweeting grainy cell phone pictures of dudes doing stretches! Nothing can ruin this first great bump of baseball cocai-

Hamels had biceps tendinitis. Could throw a bullpen in 10 days. Started throwing a month late. No MRI.

I think we can all be excused for being a bit paranoid and panicky about this, given the Phillies’ history of dressing up bad injury news in vague and contradictory talking points, while deflecting media attempts to get a handle on it. Typically, the initial PR fog around the actual extent of the injury takes a few days or weeks to clear, particularly in February, though this one seems to be dissipating by the minute. Supposedly, nobody on the medical staff is worried about this, not even enough to just have the area imaged for the sake of it. But the prognoses for pitcher shoulder problems always seem to get worse before they get better, and the Phillies in particular have an uncomfortable recent history with them.

The biceps tendon attaches the biceps to the scapula (leaving out some additional anatomical details that Wikipedia was unclear about need not concern a layperson). The proximity to and interaction with the rotator cuff and other troublesome injury spots is, to say the least, concerning. If it’s truly only inflammation, and there is no tearing or structural damage, this could be similar to his brief experience with shoulder soreness last season, which pushed back his pre-season schedule but did not cause him to miss any time.

The actual damage done by Hamels potentially missing a week or two in April (and he is adamant that he will pitch in April) depends upon your opinion of whether the 2014 Phillies have significantly improved upon the 2013 roster. Cliff Lee is now the presumptive Opening Day starter. If Miguel Gonzalez proves that he can physically grip and throw a baseball in spring training, Roberto Hernandez and Jonathan Pettibone can likely postpone their competition and round out the back of the rotation, assuming the Phillies even need a 5th starter before Hamels is ready.

The question of whether the injury at all implicates the long-term health of his shoulder area is of greater import, considering that he is owed $118.5 million through 2019. I can’t think of a compelling reason for the Phillies to be anything but extremely cautious with Hamels going forward. Pay close attention to the language being used in the coming weeks; the Phillies tend to be a bit clumsy about expectations management.

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2014/02/12/cole-hamels-is-basically-dead-probably/feed/3Phillies Acquire Brad Lincoln, Wil Nieveshttp://crashburnalley.com/2013/12/03/phillies-acquire-brad-lincoln-wil-nieves/
http://crashburnalley.com/2013/12/03/phillies-acquire-brad-lincoln-wil-nieves/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 04:10:09 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=13475Continue reading...]]>In the midst of some very hilarious pre-Winter-Meeting developments, the Phillies have made two negligible acquisitions. As Jim Salisbury reports, the Phillies have traded Rob Rasmussen and Erik Kratz to Toronto for reliever Brad Lincoln. The fact that this trade was officially announced by Phillies personnel prior to any rumor or leak should clue you in to its significance.

Lincoln will turn 29 this coming May, and is eligible for his first year of arbitration in the 2015 season. Beyond simple biographical data, the picture gets pretty grim. Lincoln works primarily with a fastball that sits at 93 miles per hour and a hard curveball that doesn’t exactly collapse out of the zone, but breaks in hard on left-handed hitters. This is a good approach for whiffs, but Lincoln doesn’t seem to get them.

Year

BF

K%

BB%

2010

240

10.4

6.3

2011

211

13.7

7.6

2012

362

24.3

6.6

2013

149

16.9

14.9

Lincoln strikes out 17.4% of hitters in his career, a figure that bodes better for a fifth starter than someone coming out of the bullpen. It’s mildly encouraging that he hit a much more suitable mark in his biggest sample. He’s also made some spot starts and has demonstrated the ability to log 50 or more innings in a season, which is useful. Ultimately, Lincoln is probably the long man in the pen, flashing great stuff but unable to miss bats and prone to Lindblom-ian dinger issues.

Rob Rasmussen merits no real comment; he’s an organizational piece that will fill out some affiliate roster in Toronto’s system. Erik Kratz takes his very-poor-man’s J.P. Arencibia act north of the border, after getting the most plate appearances of his career in 2013, owing mostly to Carlos Ruiz‘s early season PED suspension and subsequent foot injury. Unfortunately, Kratz’s contact rate flagged, and he couldn’t exploit the decent reservoir of raw pop that he had dipped into in previous seasons.

Replacing Kratz is Wil Nieves, signed to (evidently) a one year major league deal, of an amount that has yet to be disclosed, as of 11 pm EST. The Phillies are presumably banking on Nieves’ most recent 295 plate appearances being more representative of his current talent than the 823 before that. If that’s true, he’s an apparent upgrade over Kratz, and a perfectly reasonable backup catcher option, roughly 10% below average at the plate, in terms of OPS. If one were to take Nieves’ entire career as a barometer, he’s lamentably similar to Paul Bako in productivity.

As David Murphynoted, the Phillies view Nieves as a superior defender to the Phillies’ previous backup. Kratz by no means possessed Carlos Ruiz’s acumen behind the dish, but, as our own Eric Longenhagen points out:

@ByDavidMurphy 33 wild pitches allowed in 380 innings. Every other catcher in NL with that many WPs caught at least 900 innings.

This may be partially attributable to the staff that Nieves worked with in 2013. Trevor Cahill, Patrick Corbin, and Wade Miley accounted for the lion’s share of wild pitches in the Arizona rotation, and they’re all noted sinkerballers. Still, the figure is concerning, and the current regime of front office operatives have a bit of a reputation for standing by anecdotes that are entirely counter-factual.

Setting today’s moves in the context of yesterday’s tender decisions, and the more noteworthy goings-on around the league, emphasizes just how lateral the whole offseason has been for the Phillies thus far. Most of their transactions are harmless, if somewhat objectionable, but the Phillies are not in the position to have a merely inoffensive offseason. As many have pointed out, by Pythagorean expectation they were lucky to win even the 73 games that they did in 2013. For them to breach even the fringe of competition, substantial improvements are still needed. The winter meetings are 6 days away.

I’ve previously done some documentation of Halladay’s collapse. From the very start of 2013, the same issues — velocity, command, stuff — were obvious. Partly that’s because every Phillies fan (and, really, fans of baseball) were microanalyzing each of his early starts, trying desperately to wring out of them any reason to be optimistic. None were forthcoming.

Roy Halladay labored through seven starts in the beginning of 2013, all of them hard to watch. Even in his 8 inning, 1 earned run outing against Miami on April 14th, Halladay did not look himself, surrendering a lot of deep fly balls and striking out only 2 hitters. His velocity on the cutter and sinker remained substandard, and hitters teed off, blasting 9 home runs in those seven starts, an average of 2.36 per 9 innings.

When Halladay scheduled time to talk to reporters on May 8th, three days after surrendering 9 runs to 17 Marlins hitters and leaving after 2 and one third innings, we all knew the news would not be good. The question, I thought, was “season over” or “career over?” Doc reported a bone spur and a partial tear of his rotator cuff, in addition to some further fraying of the labrum that had plagued him in 2012. In terms of pitcher injuries, this is about as bad as it gets; a torn ligament in the elbow would be preferable.

So when Halladay told reporters that the doctors were optimistic they could “turn back the clock two or three years,” I don’t think any of us really believed that. I’m skeptical, for that matter, that he believed it. When he said he would pitch again in 2013, on the other hand, I was certain that was true. Everything we knew about Roy Halladay assured us he would spare no amount of hard work and effort to get back to the mound, which is what made it all the more saddening to witness. Because you can never really turn back the clock.

All the clock did was grind relentlessly forward. The Phillies lost games, sunk far out of contention after a brief pre-All-Star surge, and Halladay lifted weights and ran up stairs and (I assume) pulled jumbo jets with a harness in Clearwater, until he was asked to stop by the FAA because he ran so hard that they kept taking off. His first post-rehab start, on August 25th, was solid, but unconvincing. After everything we’d observed over the last 2 seasons, it probably would’ve taken a 9 strikeout, 2 hit shutout to believe he was his former self. In any case, Halladay’s next start saw him surrender 5 runs in as many innings, walking 2 hitters and striking out only one.

Through August and September, Halladay pitched 27 and two-thirds innings, walked more hitters than he struck out, and posted a 4.55 ERA, which is probably not representative of just how badly he looked. In his final start of the season and possibly as a Phillie, he threw 16 pitches before leaving with arm trouble, never cracking 85 miles per hour with any of his pitches. Viewed as a whole, his 2013 season was plagued by the same problems he experienced in 2012: inadequate velocity, mechanics inhibited by pain, and, not to sound like a broken record, but (click for big):

If Halladay is unable to locate his pitches exactly where he wants to work on a hitter, he cannot manipulate them, cannot induce weak contact or whiffs. Jamming his cutter in on left-handed hitters and carving away against righties inside with the sinker was a foundational approach for Doc. But his failing shoulder, even worse than hampering his velocity, impeded his ability to command each and every pitch as he needed.

What I wrote in Ryan Howard’s report card about it being difficult to watch someone get steamrolled by inevitability applies tenfold to Roy Halladay. We were watching a battle that was impossible to win, waged by a likeable and immensely talented player who would crawl to the mound and fling the ball in a somersault motion if his legs were cut off. Roy Halladay loves baseball, cares more about baseball, and works harder at baseball than I have ever loved, cared about, or worked at any hobby or job in my life, or probably ever will. It’s bordering on profane for me to look at the seasons in which his body finally failed him, and give him some flimsy letter grade. And yet I must. F.

Michael

Paul

Eric

Bill

F

D-

F

F

]]>http://crashburnalley.com/2013/11/21/2013-phillies-report-card-roy-halladay/feed/62013 Phillies Report Card: Carlos Ruizhttp://crashburnalley.com/2013/11/19/2013-phillies-report-card-carlos-ruiz/
http://crashburnalley.com/2013/11/19/2013-phillies-report-card-carlos-ruiz/#commentsTue, 19 Nov 2013 12:00:57 +0000http://crashburnalley.com/?p=13367Continue reading...]]>It’s sort of arbitrary, but I always figured mid-2009 for the time when Carlos Ruiz turned it around at the (side of the) plate. Through games played on July 19th of that year, Ruiz had posted a .688 OPS, following a rough 2008 season (in which he nevertheless provided some choppy World Series heroics). That doesn’t sound too bad, I know, but this is 2009, when the league as a whole was still hitting baseballs.

From the next day on, Ruiz hit .290/.382/.510 and finished with the first league average or better offensive season of his career. Over the following seasons it became clear what a bargain the Phillies had struck. Ruiz was already known for winning the trust and confidence of nearly every pitcher to pass through the Phillies clubhouse, and now he was a reliable threat to manufacture a solid at bat, getting on base more often than his positional peers and more often than most, if not all, of his teammates. On a team with a rapidly escalating payroll, Ruiz never made more than $5 million dollars annually from 2010 to 2013.

In 2012, Ruiz ditched the high walk rate and lengthy at-bats, suddenly discovering a taste for contact. Only five hitters with 400 or more plate appearances that season had a higher wRC+ than Ruiz’s 151: Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutchen, Ryan Braun, Buster Posey, and Joey Votto — quite a bit of good company. Had Ruiz not missed almost all of August with plantar fasciitis, he may have received more than the token number of MVP votes that he did.

Nobody could reasonably expect Ruiz to repeat his 2012, particularly with the late start he would get due to his 25 game suspension for a positive amphetamine test. But even the most tempered of expectations turned out to be too high. In addition to the first 25 games of the season, Ruiz missed 27 games from late May to early June with a strained hamstring, and took the usual assortment of scattered days off in the ensuing months. As a result, Ruiz achieved the fewest number of plate appearances since his 2006 cup of coffee.

He never really found his feet, either. Ruiz’s walk rate sank further from his 2012 mark to a career low 5.3%, this time without the compensation of a high BABIP. For the first time since 2008, Ruiz failed to stay above league average at the dish, finishing with an 89 wRC+. Behind the plate, too, he seemed more confined, less able to spring in front of a pitch at any trajectory, less crisp with his throws. This is only natural for a catcher arriving at the mid-point of his 30s, and, in a vacuum, a catcher with competent defense and a bat only about 10% below average is perfectly suitable as a starter. But in the context of the 2013 Phillies, who needed everything to go right, Ruiz was another variable that didn’t turn out far enough in their favor.

Carlos Ruiz is one of several Phillies who are impossible to separate from their own nostalgic value, and it’s probable that the ownership keeping this well in mind had some part in the 3 year, $26 million deal that the Phillies inked him to yesterday. Bill provided more than enough analysis on this front, but, suffice it to say, history is not on Ruiz’s side. It’s true that free agent salaries this offseason looked poised to inflate markedly (thanks to Ruben Amaro, it is now a certainty). But the three-year forecast for a 35 year old at the most physically strenuous position on the field is not sunny. The Phillies will have to hope that Chooch breaks the curve. B-.